Alienware 17x R4 970M Upgrade

Hi Guys,

I'm looking to get the 970M as a an upgrade while I wait for summer 2015 and new cards! I've chosen Hidevolution since their the cheapest and the best IMO... These are some of the other options I looked at. The 1 year warranty is for me worth the extra!

I have seen the following options:

HidEvolution: I've been advised to purchase the upgrade kit from their website and use the Fedex international priority option and I was told that the price on the website would include all customs fees taxes. it comes to £441 and this has been confirmed. ( I have purchased the kit from here!!)
RjTech: Price with shipping comes to $550 and its UPS Worldwide expidited but I'm again unsure if that includes customs fees. Theres also the problem IMO of the 90 day warranty and no returns policy. I'm also not sure what model Clevo's card I should chose and honestly, I would like to stay away from this option..
Eurocom: £556 with shipping and customs.. (Ouch)
PC Specialist: Refuses to sell GPU by itself..
Schenker:Refuses to sell GPU unless you have XMG notebook..
Scan: Refuses to sell GPU itself..

After evaluating everything, I decided Hidevolution would be my best bet even after hearing some horror stories about them.. Their ebay rep Ted was very informative and the card was delivered with everything I needed. I think the important thing is to communicate. Call them up and talk to them on the phone to confirm everything will be provided and place your order through their website. It's cheaper then eBay.. Once order is placed, make sure you communicate to them that you need every bit of the kit and you should get it.

I ordered on Christmas Eve, it was dispatched the same day in a matter of hours by Fedex International Priority.. I received it on the 29th of December which was a Monday.

It arrived in a small box, well packed in bubble wrap and with the following components showed in this picture (Courtesy of Eurocom's Ebay upgrade kit posting)

Spoiler

Now to install the card, you need to meet the following requirements

- You need to have Windows 8.1 installed
- You need to have your boot disk GPT formatted
- Most important of all, you have to have a UEFI install of Windows 8.1. Legacy Boot option needs to be disabled in BIOS..
- Uninstall your old AMD/NVIDIA drivers

Your BIOS settings will look like this:

Spoiler

Now we can physically install the card. I would suggest following what the Eurocom 780M upgrade video does below. Honestly steps are the same. If you have an AMD card, you will need the screws given by Hide to install the heatsink on the NVIDIA card (AMD card has different screws for this). I would suggest using IC Diamond, which is provided because it's an excellent thermal compound. Just keep it in a cup of warm water to melt and become easier to apply when you need to do so.





In essence, thermal pad layout is similar to that done in the Eurocom video however, it's better to have the following thermal pad layout (courtesy of TBoneSan/Mr Fox/ Mikecacho)

Spoiler

Heatsink wise, the AMD and Dell 3 Pipe heatsink is what you want. I admit it's bit of an overkill for the 970M but hey no harm in making it run as cool as possible

The heatsink is ready to use, just rip the black tape off and if you want, you can "mod" or really just polish it like Mikecacho did in the below post

http://forum.notebookreview.com/alienware-17-m17x/766867-m17x-r4-gtx980m-upgrade.html#post9857127

If you have done eveything correctly, tada you now boot and you'll enter Windows.

You need to mod the inf and install your GPU drivers. Now you can do this yourself or J95 has done it for us.

Get it from here: http://forum.techinferno.com/nvidia/6307-[alienware]-aftermarket-upgrades-driver-support-modded-inf-11.html#post116879

You download the NVIDIA driver, extract it with Winrar and replace the inf file in the graphics driver folder. Install, Restart and your upgrade is complete.

Screenshot of GPU-Z with the 970M installed.

Spoiler

 

Reserved for future posts..

 

Fujipoly Extreme Thermal pads it what i use and they have lasted me over 2 years with no issues, but regardless the new cards run cold anyhow.

 

Our shipping to Europe would be TNT/UPS at 5-7 days as listed on our website.

 

Hi,

What thickness pads did u get and about how much do you need to typically lay on the GPU? Is 0.5mm thickness enough? And jesus it's really expensive here in the UK... £11.19 for a 100x15mm strip... I'm thinking of these Phobya XT pads which are next best and much cheaper...

http://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/Phobya-Th...hermal_Compounds_Supplies&hash=item2c78dffe1e

Will 0.5mm thick be enough? Also is the dimensions of this enough of laying on the whole GPU?

 

You should get thermal pads when you buy the cards. I know Eurocom and HID include that. Not sure what quality pads they use but probably more than sufficient

Pretty sure 0.5mm is too thin but you can always stack them. Best to go with 1.0mm imo

 

Only reason I'm thinking of 0.5mm pads as J95 suggested them when getting the 780M installed... @Mikecacho, what did u do with the fujipoly pads u had? What were their thickness?

 

the only real difference between the models on RJTech are the fact that some come with an x-bracket and others come with a back plate. i am looking for the 980M with the x-bracket as i have a hunch that the back plate will cause some issues during the install of the card.

 

Mike what thickness were the pads once again? Need to put my order in for pads..

Yeah exactly.. And I don't know which ones are which.. I'm ordering from Hide because shipping customs is all included and I can live with the 1 year warranty and lifetime tech support ..

Only thing now is one last thing bothering me.. To flash vBIOS can you do it even if your laptop is in optimus mode? You have to do vBIOS flashing in DOS from what I remember so shouldn't be a problem right?

 

go with the ones that have an x-bracket, that's my plan.

 

Do you have the 17 with 120hz or 60hz screen.

 

60hz display I have!

 

I have same system as you . Please keep us informed on how the 980m install goes cuz I want to do same thing .

 

it won't be for a while, maybe after my warranty expires in march...hoping to get decent paying work by then at least.

 

I hope you do to brother.

 

M15x with gtx 970m use 1 mm thermalpads, make sure you have the right once.



Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

i wonder if you can reuse thermal pads or is it just best practice to change them when the new card is in?

 

I would change them, usually I have a couple that rip when the heatsink is pulled off and the stock ones are gonna be pretty meh anyways. If you're spending a lot on a new GPU you might as well buy good thermal pads. If you're running the Fujipoly ones you might be OK leaving them if they stay in one piece and aren't falling apart.

 

true, though the original placement is a good template as the chip arrangements are all the same so figuring out which pad goes where is easy.

 

So long as the pads are physically intact it's ok, if they rip then they need replacing.

 

Do you guys use pads on the back of your cards like the 780m . Because they only come with x bracket on the back

 

there's pads underneath the GPU card? i thought it was only the ones that are sandwiched between the card and the heatsink!

 

Sorry wrong thread

 

Have my 970M now..

I've taken a picture of it..

https://www.dropbox.com/s/6mw09tdafsof6iy/DSC_0037.jpg?dl=0

I'm planning on putting thermal pads along the whole top end of the card and then will place pads on the right hand side.. Do I need to place any pads on the left hand side of the card at all? Primarily near the black squares at the bottom near the die?

Edit: Link updated

 

Your dropbox link doesn't work. Are you using your old (2 pipe?) heatsink, or do you have a new one?

 

Hi,

I'm using a 3 pipe AMD heatsink and it should be fine.. I've updated my above post with the correct link: https://www.dropbox.com/s/6mw09tdafsof6iy/DSC_0037.jpg?dl=0

 

Card has been installed! It's working allright and is detected.. now to install drivers.. I was sadly unable to take any pictures due to the stress of installing it but mike who has done the 980M mod has the same pictures and method..

 

Very nice! Can you perhaps provide the power consumption under load (3dmark and/or some games) and temperatures? That would be great

 

Yeah I want to do all that but driver is not installing.. Even the one Hidevolution gave me.. I need to mod inf on my own one but tried that and not working.. Anyone can help me?

 

I only know about this thread: [Alienware] Aftermarket Upgrades Driver Support - Modded INF - Page 12

Should help

 

Yeah looks like a great help! Main problem for me is I'm trying to get Mr Fox's desktop driver mod to work but it's not working.. I will have to message him about that.. Installing the mobile drivers.. Give me a few minutes...

 

Installing driver now Excited

 

Good job can't wait for some results

Gesendet von meinem Nexus 5

 

Yup everything works... Just put my 17x R4 on a Notepal U3 but yeah it's taking getting used to... Now to do some testing..

Also some GPU-Z screenshot.. Got Samsung GDDR5 memory

 

Waiting for 3D Marks, want to compare the 970M vs a 980M :thumbsup:

 

So jealous right now

 

God, it runs Ice cool.. I was playing World of Tanks with my 3940XM at 3.9GHz and 970M on stock clocks... Max CPU temps using Notepal U3 is 70C and max GPU temp of 52C... Also guys, is there a Optimus menu or something? You know in AMD you had a switchable graphics menu where you could set where what program used what GPU...

 

Excellent, you'd probably want to run 3DMark on it to compare against other 970M's, to make sure you're gettting the performance you paid for, and also might be worth checking what kind of clocks the GPU stabalises at. Temperatures are awesome for you, it's certainly begging for a modified vBIOS along with some extreme overclocking - you might even get 980M performance from it!

Here's a link to some standard 970M scores:
NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M - NotebookCheck.net Tech

 

My 970M was running on boost clocks throughout the game .. I will run 3D Mark but currently trying to decide whether to send this Notepal u3 back..

 

Well it's amazing how cool the 970m runs I mean 52C... The XMG P505 runs at 74C max. Therefore Notepal is imho not really necessary. What about your CPU temp?

 

Yeah don't think I need the U3.. It's literally irritating how it makes my notebook at such a steep angle.. Going to try BF4 and see if it helps.. Max CPU temps is 70C..

 

BF4 after 1hr 15 mins: Max CPU Temps:78C
GPU Temps: 58C..

Runs so cool with Notepal U3

 

Just did a quick Firestrike with 3940XM @ 4.2GHz + 970M on stock clocks (runing at full boost speed in benches)... Hope it's working correctly

NVIDIA GeForce GTX 970M video card benchmark result - Intel Core i7-3940XM,Alienware M17xR4

Will do more tomorrow

 

that's only 700 points better than my OC'd 780M....not bad!

 

A lot of it is probably down the my 3940XM's 4.2GHz OC

 

Excellent, slightly better than GPU scores shown at notebookcheck.net; it's really begging for a modified vBIOS and a substantial overclock given your ultra low temperatures, I think you'd be able to run 1300Mhz on the core no problem (maybe more!), which would give you a 30% bump or more in performance!

 

I'm going to ask Perma to make me an unlocked vBIOS and see what can be done ... My Notepal U3 is pretty much 99% going back as it useless and just puts my whole laptop at an awkward angle and I just don't like it like that..Prefer my notebook flat

 

Which driver are you using atm? Latest nvidia with modded .inf?

 

Yeah, that would be excellent for you if you could get one from Prema, does he unlock them so that you can manipulate all the sliders in a program like NVidia Inspector - unlocked Power Slider, unlocked Voltage Slider, Unlocked Throttling Temperature Slider, Unlocked Mhz slider? That would give you total control.

(That would make me want to buy a 970M for my laptop, but I don't think it's gonna be compatible with the R3, no UEFI).

 

Using 344.75 with modded inf from J95... Have Mr Fox's desktop driver downloaded but am in no mood to clean and install drivers..

Yeah going to do that.. R3 won't work with 970M... might want to grab a R4/R5 if you can afford it while you can..